


Life Review

by Genesister (papirini)



Series: Bangs and Thangs [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Episode: s07e01 A Little Adventure, Existential Crisis, Existential Horror, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 17:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17411321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papirini/pseuds/Genesister
Summary: Kuron has a small chat, in the final moments of his life.





	Life Review

 

The water was a beautiful blue, so bright and clear that it seemed impossible. So, too, was the sunset, with its bright oranges as they faded gently into the wisteria purples, mixing with the dark greys of the incoming clouds. It was perfect.

It also wasn’t real.

**_Did you ever tell him?_ **

“Hm?”

**_You didn’t, did you._ **

Shiro sighed, as he looked out over the tree-framed pond. This place had been important to Shiro as a child. It was a place he could run to and relax, to look up at the stars and wish he could go up there, on the roads that the astronauts before him had paved. Shiro hadn’t been back to this secluded place in years, wherever it might have been. Not since he enrolled in the Galaxy Garrison so many years before.

At least, the true Shiro hadn’t returned here.

“No.” A gentle wind blew through his bangs as he watched the sun slowly set. “I never did. I never got to respond to what he said to me, not in the way I wanted to.”

It wasn’t simply an acknowledgement of forgetting to do something before his expiration, and Shiro knew it. One couldn’t acknowledge something about an event that happened before one was born. Before one was created.

“Besides, even if I did tell him how I felt, how much he meant to me, I never went to the Garrison. I never met Adam. I couldn’t say I was over him because there’s nothing for me _to_ get over. How can I say I was finished with someone I had never even met, with memories that don’t belong to me?” His hand clenched the rail so slightly his knuckles turned white. “I think we’ve already established that I’m not real.”

**_That’s a matter of opinion._ **

“No, it’s a matter of _fact_.”

Shiro turned towards the swirling void of black that stood next to him. Death itself, or at least he was pretty sure it was Death. It was an undulating, shifting, shapeless thing that seemed more inky than the surroundings around them, more unreal than the place they were in. Its voice, when it spoke, was deeper than the Lion’s growl, and shook through Shiro’s mind.

It had appeared when he opened his eyes to the nothingness of his dying mind, and had stayed close to him as he navigated through his memories. Well, at least those that were his and not the original Takashi Shirogane’s, until he suddenly came to a memory that most definitely wasn’t one he made – his time at the Garrison, before Kerberos. It had been a time that even the real Shiro hadn’t thought much of, save for remembering the feeling of determination that fueled him all through his time in space.

It had, in its own way, fueled the fake Shiro on his journey as well, but to a far different fate that anyone could have hoped. Somehow, the memories led him to the place of childhood that he never was intended for him to know – why would he need to, when Haggar had no need for such silly things? - and to this sunset he shouldn’t have known of. Yet here he was, somehow.

And that was all there was to say about Death, as Shiro felt it look through him within its pastel-like mist that didn’t stop moving, even when the wind died down.

 _Died. Ha,_ Shiro ruminated glumly, not caring that Death could hear his thoughts in this dying realm of the mind. _I slay myself._

Did he even have a right to be called a he? He was an it when all was said and done. An it whose corpse was probably dropped off the side of the collapsing clone facility once Keith had finished him off.

“I remember it all now. I thought it was all a nightmare, a bad one, when I first woke up, but…”

Maybe it was because this was the part where, upon death, the artificial neurons in his brain were fired up with what little energy was left, and one’s life flashed before their eyes as if they’d just experienced it mere moments ago. At least mechanically, it turned out that the death of someone who was entirely artificial had a similarity to that of someone who was born naturally.

“I remember what they called me, what they said of me when I was incubated. Operation Kuron. Subject Y0XT39. One of multiple clones of the original Takashi Shirogane, one of the few that were viable. A multi-staged saboteur. And the name Shiro…”

He closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“I just stole it, like a thief. It was never really mine.” He could hear the leaves rustling around him, as the wind proceeded to fill the empty space where his right arm would have been. His arm. The source of his energy, his very life, before it was abruptly cut off. “I was just a puppet pretending to be a real boy the entire time, and the truth was all right under my lying nose. Now, my strings are cut, I’m shutting down, and all of these things will be gone soon.”

There was a somber pause from the inky black mass as it swirled.

 **_You really_ ** **do** **_think so little of yourself, Shiro._ **

“Stop—you don’t have to call me that. Not anymore.” Why was Death sounding so sad? Death should have been a lot more terrifying. Granted, the nothingness talking to Shiro _was_ unnerving, but surely Death was supposed to be worse for ne’er do-gooders?  “I don’t even know why I’m using it still. Just use my Galra designation. That’s my true name.”

 **_Can’t say I prefer doing that. Your real name_ ** **is** **_a bit of a handful._ **

Oh, it turned out that Death had a sense of humor as well. Perfect.

“Then...just Kuron.” Shi—Kuron went back to staring at the lake. The lake’s brilliant colors were beginning to dim – no doubt a sign that his brain was finally going out, without the quintessence in that fake arm to keep it functional. “Or abomination, or jerk, or whatever. It doesn’t matter. That’s what I am. An experiment with no soul.”

 **_Now, that’s not true._ ** Insistence leaked into Death’s distorted voice. **_You’re more than that._ **

“Then why did cutting my arm off cause me to start dying?”

Death didn’t respond.

“See? You know why - because I’m not real,” Kuron repeated. “A real person with a real soul…they expend more quintessence in one hour than I’ll ever have in a lifetime. All of what I had was in my arm, and when I lost that…”

Still no response from the dark thing. Of course not. How can anyone rebut what he was now saying?

“I was never meant to last, was I? Only until I did my job…” His hand shook as it clung even tighter to the rail as he choked out the next thought in his mind. “Only until I proved I wasn’t a broken soldier like the original, and killed everyone and everything I loved.”

The sun dipped behind the trees, until it was completely gone from sight.

“They’re gone, Death. Or whatever you are. You could just be a glitch, or a failsafe of Haggar’s to make sure I don’t compromise anything still stored in my brain when I go. I don’t know anymore.” The sky began to dim to a dark purple as Kuron’s eyes misted. “You know, it’s funny? I thought my memories weren’t my own, and I told Lance I didn’t feel like myself? I always suspected something was wrong with me. But I never realized it was because I _wasn’t_ really who I thought I was. I _never_ was. If I’d said something before…but I couldn’t. A puppet doesn’t do anything outside of what it’s master wants it to do, you know?”

His hand finally released the rail, to rub his eyes. He shouldn’t be crying. He didn’t deserve to cry after his crimes.

“So I didn’t say anything else. And now everyone is—”

 **_You didn’t know._ ** Death’s voice finally came out once more. It was strangely gentle, even though Kuron felt it shouldn’t have. **_You couldn’t have known._ **

“I should have!” More water formed in Kuron’s eyes at this, and he covered his face with his hand. “Nothing felt right, not even my own memories, yet I said nothing else to anyone. I ignored it, let it fester, until it was too late.”

**_Just like Shiro would have._ **

“I’m. _Not._ Shiro!”

Kuron spoke slowly, each word shakily punctuated as his voice raised. Above them, stars began to twinkle into existence – a final night before total darkness overtook him. This time, his hand fell to his side, and he didn’t bother to try and rub his face when the tears began again.

“No matter what I wanted to be, it doesn’t matter. _I_ don’t matter, not when it comes to being Shiro, because I’m not him. I never was, and I never could _be_ what he was!”

The faintest of images swam in front of him – of him and the Paladins wishing Keith well when he left. When he bonded with the Black Lion for the first time, and the rush of feelings that followed. Joining the session of Monsters and Mana with a strong, sure, confident paladin – the thing that he always wanted to be. The thing he’d never been.  

“I was the enemy the entire time. Nothing will change what I did now."

Watching Pidge work on her newest invention. Hunk negotiating with the Galra in charge of the Omega Shield. Allura, her eyes aglow as she tried out a new spell; Lance, his eyes lighting up as his skills progressed. Then, there was Keith.

"You should have taken me earlier, before I destroyed everyone.”

His team, trapped on the Castle of Lions as it started its countdown to self-destruction. The Black Lion, cutting off their bond the moment he lost control. Keith, trying to snap him out of his true nature, baring his most primal feelings for Shiro, only for the glowing-eyed thing that had laughed at his words and actions to bear down his weight against him, and to try to slit his throat with his energy sword.

“I should never have survived past Thayserix.”

Cutting his arm off – ending his life – was the only way to stop him. The last thing Kuron ever saw when it happened was the look of despair on Keith's face as everything collapsed around them, and they were no doubt plunged to their ends. It was seared into him, even now, as vividly as it ever could be.

“It would have been better that way.”

 **_Don’t say that._ ** Death’s voice sharpened, just slightly, much like a stern father to his men. Like Commander Iverson to the cadets. But that never _happened_ , not to _him_. **_You_ ** **do** **_matter, no matter what. You did what you could. You fought. You tried to be strong for all of them. That’s what the real Shiro—_ **

“ _STOP IT!!_ ”

This time, Kuron whirled around to the voided figure, his eyes widening with anger and confusion as he yelled at the blackness next to him – though not in the face. Never in the face. He didn’t know what he might see if he looked Death directly in the face.

“I AM _NOT SHIRO_ —I’m not _real_!! Why do you keep trying to—why are you being so _nice_ to me!? Just—I _know_ why you’re here! Why are you prolonging it!?”

**_I beg your pardon?_ **

“I know where I’m going when this is over, ok!? You didn’t have to bring me here.  You—you don’t have to soften the blow for _me_.”

_**...Who do you think I am?** _

"Isn't it _obvious_!?"

Kuron grit his teeth, shutting his eyes. He could feel the tears finally threaten to stream down his face, despite his best efforts to force them back. He didn’t deserve to cry, after all. Not after what he did.

“I don’t _want_ to die,” he moaned, as he brought his hands to his face. “I— _don’t_ , no one does. But I don’t have a choice, do I? In the end, I’ve been fighting for nothing.”

Wisps of cool wind again began to blow through his forelock as he slowly dropped his dampened hands. Water streamed down his face.

“I mean, if it’s even a thing, this is me we’re talking about, so I can’t go to heaven, right? Even if I didn’t kill everyone I cared about, I can’t possibly have a real soul. Where else am I supposed to go, anyways, if I somehow _did_? The other place? Oblivion? Do I disintegrate!? Is it quick, slow, painful, _anything_?! You tell me! I—”

**_But they’re alive, Kuron._ **

That froze the clone in his tracks. Whatever else he had to say at that moment died on his lips.

“I—what?”

There was no vocal response. Instead, a black line shot forward from the blackness, solidifying into a hand, and gently touched Kuron’s shoulder. It was like burning ice, and Kuron couldn’t move.

Couldn’t move, as at the same moment new images – new memories –  flooded his mind.

_You watch as Lotor begins fighting the Paladins, unable to help and unable to speak to them. But then Keith comes to you, and you must tell him the truth of your fate._

_You teach Keith, when he returns once more, how to look through the Black Lion’s eyes. Wings once more grace the Black Lion, and you watch through the sunrise as Keith joins everyone else._

_You are energized by the quintessence field, and you almost feel alive again. It becomes too much to handle, and you are forced to retreat._

_The Castle, transformed by unstable rifts as they are closed, into a crystal humming with energy. You feel drained alongside the Black Lion, and you are certain you will at last lose yourself. Then you feel yourself unbound by unseen hands, and with a gentle rumble, your link to the Black Lion is gently severed like a silk ribbon unbound. It doesn’t hurt; indeed, you feel light as a breeze, and just as calm._

_Opening your eyes for the first time in an eternity, and you find your eyes are Allura’s. Her sight is sharp and clear. The Paladins are alive, looking somber and hopeful at the same time. She and you walk away from the Black Lion, and you see your body._

His _body. You can barely sense anything inside it. As you feel yourself being drawn into the body, you can sense Allura threading your essence into the vessel as best she can. Where once you were impermanent, you can feel yourself begin to melt down into the shape beneath, and as you wake up, as you sleep for the first time again, there is a voice in your mind—_

Kuron jerked back, gasping. He fell to his knees, his hand grasping at his head. The memories began to settle into his—no. He didn’t experience it. Yet he did. That had been his body. And the one who was going towards it – it wasn’t him, but at the same time, it more and more felt like it was him.

The shadow of the figure loomed dark and heavy on him as he slowly, finally, deigned to look up at his reaper in the face.

“I…don’t—”

That last word died in his throat as he saw the darkness fall away from the figure, the black unwrapping from the other’s form and swirling away like ribbons into the air. Dark eyes began to form from beneath the nothing, along with the angular jaw, the quiet line of a mouth, the tell-tale scar over the bridge of the nose.

The armor of the Black Paladin, and the dark hair with a single white forelock swaying in the wind.

**_I’m sorry about all of this._ **

There was an almost unearthly glow around him, a blue bordering on white; beneath him the ground, which he just floated above, began to turn a light purple field of stars of infinite depth. Kuron’s eyes widened as he stared, thunderstruck, at the identity of the figure, and the face now looking down at him.

**_You don’t deserve to die._ **

Kuron was looking at himself.

“I—” Kuron stared at this near-perfect image of himself. Most of the differences were minor – his bangs were a little longer, his eyes were shaped just a little bit different, he looked just a little bit older and a little less square. But it was _him_. “I don’t understand. You’re—”

That was when he noticed the white of the other’s hair – there were spots of it forming at his temples, even as the seconds passed.

 **_Here?_ ** A wry smile faintly played on the other Shiro’s lips as he looked down. **_I know. I’m surprised too. I wasn’t expecting to see you again, that’s for sure._ **

“Again?”

 **_Yeah._ ** The white spots on his temples became more prominent, spreading towards his brow, even as the other’s eyes softened.  ** _I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to save you._ **

Kuron closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t—

 **_…I’m sorry._ ** The white began to flick around the other’s ears. **_About Black rejecting you that first time._ **

Kuron’s eyes whipped open again.

“What?”

 **_We didn’t know what you were trying to do._ ** The other him frowned. **_In the beginning, we didn’t know if we could trust you. Not with her in your head._ **

“I...I didn’t know!” Kuron’s hands went to his head. “I didn’t, truly-”

 **_I was so mad that no one could tell that you weren’t me. That you were working for the enemy._ ** Shiro let out a long, quiet sigh. **_But then I saw that you were so much like me still. Until the moment_ ** **she** **_took over fully…you tried so hard. You tried even though you were losing. Even when you were in her control, I could see it. You didn’t give up, did you?_ **

“I couldn’t fight it! I just wanted to be a paladin! I just wanted to do the right thing—!”

**_That’s right. Like me._ **

Kuron began to tremble as realization dawned on him on this other him.

“You’re him.” The other was shining like the sun as he cowered. It seemed so appropriate. “You’re the real him.”

 **_Yeah. I am._ ** Shiro closed his eyes. **_And we’re both dying now._ **

“How is this possible? How is any of this—”

 **_Your body is rejecting me, because I was already dead._ ** Of course. He had been seeing through Allura’s eyes, and there was his body, and—  ** _I’m not synchronizing properly with it. Not only that, but...you’re partially right about your quintessence, as well. You weren’t allowed a normal, healthy  amount for your lifespan, and Haggar designed our arm to maximize its lethality at full power - at the cost of speeding up your quintessence's depletion._ **

Slowly, the glowing Shiro went down to his knees.

**_So, neither of us are going to survive this._ **

The white began to seep into the hair of his eyebrows.

**_Not alone._ **

“So, what? You want to work together? With _me_?” Kuron stared at him incredulously. “How are we supposed to do that? What if I hurt everyone again? How can you possibly trust me after what I did?”

Shiro merely looked at him, a determined expression etched into his face.

“What?” Kuron watched as his original’s eyes quietly trailed down towards the ground. “What is it—"

His heart stopped when he saw the glowing liquid streaming from his fingers. Quintessence. His quintessence, at least what was left of it. He began to shake as he watched his hand turn translucent, until he could see the bridge beneath it.

**_Here._ **

The real Shiro gently touched his own hand to the liquid leaking out of him, and instantly, Kuron felt a little better. He also felt lighter, more like himself. Like Shiro.

“No, but I’m not Shiro,” he said aloud at the thought. “I can’t be.”

**_You_ can _be, if you want._ **

Did Shiro’s hair ever look that white? He was certain it hadn’t, yet now the white crept up towards where his undercut began. His undercut, that was right – he’d had that surgery, just before Kerberos. They’d added the electrodes into his brain, and he had to shave it just for that. Everyone thought he was just doing something new with his hair; they generally didn’t see the scar that sat just along his hairline, covered by his upper strands of hair. Not unless they looked closely, like Keith would.

Wait. _Was_ it him who had the surgery, or was it—

“I’m not…you.” Kuron wasn’t so sure of it anymore, though. Not when he saw Shiro’s hand start to leak onto the bridge as well, his pure blue quintessence lapping onto and mixing into his glowing purple essence. “Right?”

**_Not right now, no._ **

Shiro’s hand guided itself to Kuron’s, until it at last clasped it firmly.

**_Not yet._ **

A shock of energy ripped up through Kuron’s arm and unto his brain, and he let out a gasp as Shiro’s hand began to warp over his. Black glove on black glove began to melt into one another until neither of them could tell where one hand ended and the other began.

“What are you—!?” Kuron’s heart began to beat in his chest so violently that he could see the other’s arm twitching through the misshapen mass of their limbs. “What are you doing to me, Shiro?!”

 **_I don’t know_ ** . Shiro’s tone was apologetic as he leaned in closer. **_I’ve never done this before. I just know we can’t survive apart. But we can live if we work together. Both of us. We can do this._ **

For a moment, Kuron’s heart soared at the idea.

**_I know we can._ **

To have a second chance at life. To undo the damage he did.

“But do I really deserve this?” He watched as his arm began to melt. “After everything I’ve done to you, to my fr—our frie—your—to Keith—”

It was getting hard to differentiate, to think and separate what was really his and what had been otherwise. He was himself, he was Kuron, he had to be. Yet he never existed, in the end. He shouldn’t have, he thought as he felt himself sag towards Shiro, his strength fading. He kept fighting, even when he knew he was losing. Even when he was always destined to lose.

And _yet_.

“What exactly am I, to you...?”

He felt his forehead sink into Shiro’s chest; his shoulders followed soon after. No, his strength wasn’t fading – it was being drawn to Shiro, the real boy. He was absorbing it – absorbing him. He shook at the implications of what was happening.

He was going to disappear.

 **_No._ ** He felt the other’s head gently leaning against his; in the corner of his eye he could see color start to drip down onto his back. **_I won’t let you. You’re me, and I’m you. Together we’re…_ **

A pause.

 **_…I was going somewhere with this, I swear._ ** Could a melting blob be sheepish? That was what Shiro was looking like more and more to Kuron’s eroding vision. **_But we can do this together. We can live together, be together, as one. We can be a paladin again, I know it. But if we don’t do this now…if we don’t take this chance, neither of us are going to last much longer._ **

Somehow, he knew he was telling the truth. If his body was rejecting him, and he couldn’t survive much longer—

**_Please. Please accept me._ **

Wait, he? Me? Who? Himself? Which himself? He wasn’t sure where his thoughts were going now, save that as the moments passed, and he sunk further into Shiro, he felt less able to separate himself from himself—from Shiro. He also, somehow, felt less afraid. Maybe because Shiro didn’t seem afraid of himself.

Himself?

**_Yes._ **

Kuron felt Shiro’s bones melt over him, and he closed his eyes as he felt a strange warmth wash over him at the same time. He was also losing form, now; soon enough he wouldn’t have himself. He wouldn’t be himself. He would die.

**_No. Not true. We’ll be—_ **

_Me._

 

__

 

The sky around them began to melt, each layer of night slowly darkening to black as it dripped into the dissipating grass. The bridge and the pond became a thick, grey slag that cushioned the melting thing that Shiro and Kuron was congealing into. The wind died, leaving nothing but a sense of cold around the two bodies as they became something else, losing human shape entirely as the moments ticked by.

Kuron could feel himself mixing into Shiro, felt himself floating inside what Shiro was, and felt Shiro merging within himself as well. He didn’t know what he was becoming, but he could feel their legs pooling around the mass of color and being that they were. Their bones and muscles twisted and bent, losing form, losing function, until they bubbled down into the formless mass that pulsed with faces and shapes without end.

Kuron could—no. He wasn’t Kuron anymore, was he? Shiro’s thoughts began to swirl around him, and he could feel himself push his own thoughts back like waves, until both collided and curled together as well. The monstrous thing of liquid and goo they were then quivered as the minds combined, completing the fusion; where one ended and the other began was blurred until the line was almost nonexistent.

He couldn’t be Kuron anymore, he realized as the last of him disappeared. But he wouldn’t die like this. He couldn’t. He wanted to live. Maybe Shiro was right. Maybe he could be what he’d always wanted to be.

Maybe he deserved a second chance.

 

* * *

 

They weren’t done. _He_ wasn’t done.

There was so much to do, and so little time to do it. The pile bulged here and there, an elbow emerging here, a face pushing up there, a half-formed foot sliding in and out in other places. Anyone else who saw it (but no one else ever _would_ see it) would have no doubt seen little more than a mushy abomination of white and black and pale and purple. Whatever he was, whatever he was going to become in this place, and regardless of how weird it felt, he was both of them now. For now.

Or—just Shiro. One of them had always wanted to be Shiro, after all, while the other always had been. Now they were all him. There was a strange sense of joy in it, having the feeling of being real, but then again of _course_ he was real. If he hadn’t been real before, now if felt like he was more real than ever before. Now it was just a question of what to do with itself, with this new and budding sense of self while it lasted.

The mass let out a groan as the stars finally began to twinkle out, leaving nothing but a purple void howling through the air around them. Its shape began to stretch, attempting to restore its essence to this now-otherwise empty vessel. Its splashed itself as far as if could, coloring the nothing with streaks of combined colors, and tendrils of merged memories. Some were Shiro’s - of the Garrison, of Kerberos, of the terror of his lost year and a young man who saved his life before he eventually died. Others were Shiro’s as well – of a hundred sleeping Shiros in pods, of a show where he played himself, of a dying ship where he prayed for rescue, of Alteans who survived after all and a young man who saved his life before he eventually died.

In the end, they all came together, and became one in essence and all other things. Yet at first the violet nothing seemed endless, and the mass was so very small indeed. The two people still consciously within itself still pushed back and forth in uncertainty, unknowing what would be left of each of them when all was truly said and done.

_Shiro. Please._

The mass stopped and wobbled as the voice suddenly echoed through the nothing in the air. It wasn’t Shiro’s voice that had spoken, just then. It came from beyond the fading inner space.

_Fight!_

Keith.

Keith sounded desperate, scared. Keith didn’t know that he _was_ fighting. Keith couldn’t have known.

_You can’t do this to me again._

The mass rippled violently at the thought. It knew exactly what those words meant, what the tone and timbre conveyed. Keith was afraid he would leave again. Just like always.

It would never, it could never. Not again. He had died, so many times, but Keith had always brought him back. Keith believed in him when no one else in the whole universe had, even during the time he had been little more than a puppet.

_That’s right._

There was suddenly no question of it anymore, the mass realized as it began to glow. There was no more pushback, no who is this or who is that. The colors began to flow and mesh and swirl together when both remembered, and both realized they had the same, most important thing in common no matter who or what they were or would become.

There was someone out there counting on him to come back. Which him? _Him._ It really didn’t matter now as they merged further together, combining to become more uniform.

_I’m coming, Keith._

What mattered was that he wouldn’t die alone, the mass decided as it pulsed brighter than the sun. He would live together, as one, and make this work.

He could save himself. All of it.

_Yes? Yes._

Unable to contain itself any longer, the mass exploded.

 

* * *

 

_He didn’t open his eyes, not at first._

_He felt tired, and as he came to, he began to cough. Unlike when he breathed again for the first time, though, his reaction it wasn’t as violent, nor as disconnecting. This time, he found that settling into the body felt more like he was sinking into a favorite chair for the first time in forever, as opposed to being shoved into a suit that was simultaneously five sizes too small and eight sizes too big._

_No. Unlike before, it felt perfect now, as if he’d always had this body._

_“Shiro!”_

_He had suspected Keith was there, even before the other had said anything. He didn’t know how or why he’d known, save for the ache in his bones that seemed to tell him that yes, of course Keith had been there the whole time. Save for the strange sensation in his chest that seemed to well up at the sound of Keith’s voice._

We did it.

_The stray thought slipped away as quickly as it surfaced, and Shiro found himself dazedly opening his eyes._

_“Keith…?” He sounded drunk. It felt like he’d been out for an eternity. Knowing his luck, he likely had been. “I was dreaming.”_

_The faint images of the Garrison were easily recalled to the front of his mind. Yes, he’d been thinking of those days – his life had flashed before his eyes. Then after that, there had been…something. Something vitally important that had happened. Yet whatever that had been was already gently slipping away from him, and whatever explanation he could have had for what he’d experienced died in his throat._

_He did remember Keith, though. Somehow, Keith was involved in some way._

_“Keith…you saved me.”_

_It was true enough. Keith had saved him. Already he felt better because of it. Better than better, even. He’d not felt this way in years, if not decades, if_ ever.

_“We saved each other.”_

_As Shiro felt Keith slip his arms around him, and he pressed against the now-Black Paladin in return, he could only agree that truer words were never spoken. Even as everyone came in and Lance talked about charging up the lions with something that made…well._

_Shiro might have lost track of exactly what Lance was talking about at that moment, and he could only sigh and chuckle at the situation._

_“It’s good to be back.”_

_And – somewhere deep down inside him – a part of him inexplicably, but nevertheless finally, knew he was real after all._

 

**E N D**


End file.
